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Friday, May 31, 2013

Welcome, welcome, one and all, to the greatest show on earth, the traveling Biblioblog Carnival - a round-up of the month's most exciting, stimulating, scintillating, thought provoking articles and blog posts in the wide, wide field of biblical studies. We guarantee that even if you were to search the world over, high and low, you wouldn't find anything like it - not until next month. Rest assured, you'll get your money's worth. This is, to steal a line, the greatest show in heaven, hell or earth.

Come inside the show's about to start... Like most carnivals, it may prove that there's too much to see in one visit. Whether it's because we're unable to discriminate or because there was just a lot of good material this month, we leave it to you to decide. We encourage you to return again and again. And invite a friend.

Old TestamentGenesis:
Rod the Demon Hunter at Political Jesus - And now we have Appleby Baptist Church in Nacogdoches, Texas as a
church that publicly admits to teaching the racist Curse of Ham theory.

Fred Clark the Slactivist – “The Sodom and Gomorrah story may be the biblical passage most
frequently cited against homosexuality, it may also be the least relevant,
because it’s not clear it has much to do with homosexuality at all.”

Matt Page at the Bible Films
Blog - Ishmael's appearances tend to be bland unimaginative and, as in the
text, he is very much a character who is acted upon, little more than a moving
prop.

Deuteronomy:

Morf Morford at God’s Politics - There should be no poor among you - Deuteronomy 15:4 This is one of the few
commands virtually all religious people easily – even eagerly – follow.
We just do it our own way.

Joshua:

Richard Beck at Experimental Theology - Yes, you read the right. This is a post
about how to read the cherem texts non-violently.

Kings:
Richard Beck at Experimental Theology
- One of the interesting tensions in the
Old Testament are the mixed messages you get about kings. Are kings good or bad? At times the Old Testament reads like monarchist propaganda. At others
times the OT reads like subversive, anti-monarchist literature.

Bible Study and the Christian Life - In this inaugural episode of the Bible Study and the Christian Life
podcast on the Book of Kings, we discuss the backstory of the Book of Kings.
We focus on offering an overview of the Book of Samuel, the book that
immediately precedes the Book of Kings in the Bible.

Ecclesiastes: Larisa
Levicheva at Biblical and Early Christian Studies –

Qoheleth sees the
experience of pleasure as the only one available to human beings. The
constraints of human knowledge and the lack of control over the activities in
this world make material gain illusory and transient.

Jeremiah:

Richard Beck at Experimental Theology- In light of this, I've taken up hissing as
a part of my practice in resisting the Principalities and Powers. I'm now
hissing in meetings, in stores, in political discussions. True, it's all a bit distracting to
co-workers, friends and family, but spiritual warfare is spiritual warfare.

Lawrence H. Schiffman - [W]e consider examples
drawn from the Dead Sea Scrolls, in particular the sectarian scrolls regarded
as representing the views of the sect that gathered the Dead Sea Scrolls at
Qumran. We will see here that true rationales for commandments are for the most
part lacking.

Matt Page at the Bible Films Blog –
Judith however has passed out of fashion, despite being the subject of
what could arguably be called the first real Biblical Epic.

Tablet - A small, ancient
sect known as the Samaritans rely on the Torah, and the Torah alone, as their
sole religious text—and the Samaritans use a somewhat different version. Two weeks ago, the first English translation of this Hebrew text was published by
Samaritan historian and scholar Binyamin Tsedaka: The Israelite Samaritan
Version of the Torah. There are some 6,000 instances where this version of the
Torah differs from the Masoretic text; the question for scholars is which
version is more complete, or more accurate

New
Testament

Matthew:
Scott McKnight at Jesus Creed - Do you think empire criticism reads too much into the text and not
enough out of the text? Is there anything in Matthew that is overtly critical
of Rome?

Mark:

Joel Watts at Unsettled Christianity - Are we wrong, then, in reading Mark as a simplistic historical
narrative of the life of Jesus? Hardly, but we aren't fully reading it with the
ears of the first audience. We have replaced the aperte with our need for palam
and that prevents any serious investigation into the Gospel.

Tony Jones at Theoblogy - In the Gospel of John, Jesus makes many confident self-proclamations
(conservative Evangelical’s favorite verses which seemingly demonstrate the
exclusivity of Jesus). Now, I’m sure that claiming to be God in 1st century Judaism is a really big deal; however, how is it that none of these
self-proclamations make it into any of the synoptic gospels? Is it possible
that Jesus never made these self-proclamations? If not, how does this affect our understanding of Trinitarian theology in the gospel accounts?

Paul:John
Barclay’s lecture, at St. Mary's University College“Paul and the Gift: Gift-Theory, Grace and Critical Issues
in the Interpretation of Paul,” with
introduction by Chris Keith

James McGrath has also begun a paraphrased retelling of Romans: We know that what the Bible says, it says to and about the people who
have the Bible, so that mouths may be shut and the whole world rendered
accountable to God. For it is not on the basis of Christian badges of identity,
or mere possession of the Bible, that all humankind shall be acquitted before
God. The Bible should rather be making us aware of just how far short we fall.

Michael F. Bird at Euangelion –We know from Rom 16:1-2 that a deaconess named Phoebe carried Paul’s
letter to the Roman churches. However, what was her role in undertaking such a
task? Did she just hand on the letter like a FedEx delivery lady, did she read
the letter to them, did she answer questions about the letter, or did she even
expound the letter?

Jeff Dun at the Internet Monk - For someone who lived 3,000,000 years ago, or 6,000 years ago, or
never, Adam sure is stirring up a lot of dust. Of course, that’s what he was
made of, if he was made at all.

Hebrews:

James McGrath at Exploring our Matrix - To say that Jesus was tempted in every way that other human beings are
seems incompatible with the view that Jesus was an omniscient divine entity.
Can one know all the possible negative impacts of one’s actions and still be
tempted in the same way we are, when we can deceive ourselves and persuade
ourselves that no harm will come of it if we give in to temptation?

Revelation:
Kurt Willems at Red Letter Christians -I want to suggest that most of what you have been taught about
Revelation, especially if you watched the cheesy Christian movies or grew up in
conservative/fundamentalist expressions of evangelicalism, is wrong.

New Testament Perspectives - Craig R. Koester, professor of New Testament
at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minn., recently gave the 2013 Schaff Lectures
(March 22, 2013 at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary) entitled: “The Apocalypse,
Archaeology, and the Dead Sea Scrolls.”
Here are the videos from that session.

Don Burrows at Note Bene – But in a parenthetical argument in his last chapter, Ehrman also
dismisses the notion that these works can be considered "fiction,"and here I have to disagree.

Phillip Jenkins at The Anxious Bench - I have been posting recently about the survival of the so-called lost
gospels into the Middle Ages and beyond. When scholars discuss these texts,
they pay special attention to the so-called Jewish-Christian gospels as
precious survivals of the earliest Jesus movement. Actually, this
Jewish-Christian tradition can also tell us a great deal about how we got our
present standard texts of the canonical four gospels.

Don Burrows at Note Bene - Religious freedom is under attack in America -- or so says the
right-wing echo chamber, where such a sentiment is not only repeated daily but
taken for granted as reality. Christians and Christianity are being
"frozen out" of America and good followers of Jesus are being
"persecuted" roundly in America today for their religious beliefs
just like they were in ancient Rome. ...Of course, this is all fantasy…

James Tabor at Taborblog – The idea seems to be that “secular historians” prejudge evidence and are
accordingly biased in that they will not allow even the possibility of the
miraculous as part of ones historical inquiry. If historians ask the questions:
what do we know and how do we know it–how is it that we claim to “know” from
the start that miracles do not happen and that supernatural explanations for
various developments are to be rejected?

Chris Glaser - If the biblical witness is to be trusted, we know Jesus could read,
because he read from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah in his home synagogue in
Nazareth. And we know Jesus could write, because he “bent down and wrote on the
ground” when a woman accused of adultery was about to be stoned. ... But why didn't he write down all his thoughts and parables on a scroll
somewhere, and put the Jesus Seminar out of business? Here are a few possibilities...

James Crossley at Sheffield Biblical Studies - There are a number of online recollections of Geza Vermes, all of
which, as far as I can see, recognise his importance as a scholar of early
Judaism and the New Testament, particularly the quest for the historical Jesus.
I want to look at his importance for New Testament studies, with the
qualification that this aspect of Vermes’ career was, of course, part of
Vermes’ Jewish studies.

Scott McKnight at Jesus Creed – We have to fill in the lines but there appears to be a fairly common
1st Century slippery slope: If you compromise on this one, you’ll end up
inviting the likes of Antiochus Epiphanes back into Jerusalem.

Rod the Demon Hunter at Political Jesus - has a Patristics carnival of his very own (even if it is very, very, very, very late.)

Edith M. Humphrey at Baker Academic Blog- In Scripture and Tradition: What the Bible Really Says, I am not
aiming to say everything that can be said about tradition. Rather, I train my
gaze on what the biblical writers both model and state explicitly regarding our
topic.

Scott McKnight at Jesus Creed - All theology, in the sense of orthodoxy or dogmatics or systematics, is
a process. It’s an experimental expression to put into words what one thinks
the Bible teaches in words that make sense in a new context. This also means no
articulation is infallible or absolute or final. Which is not to say theology
isn’t true, but it’s not final truth.

Rod the Demon Hunter at Political Jesus - Let’s be honest, I have an apathy for so called Christian apologists and Bull-Horn evangelists who want to monologue at everyone they meet.

Translation:

Abramkj at Words on the Word - How
literal should a Bible translation be? What makes a translation of the
Scriptures faithful and accurate? What is the significance of the original form
and the original meaning?

Ecclesiology /Liturgy / Worship:
Tony Jones at Theoblogy-…titles are not about leadership, they are about power. Get rid of them…

The Daily Mail - Romanian Nuns Celebrate Easter among the skulls of their dead sisters -

Paul Jesep at Faith with Wisdom - As a sojourner I have developed an
appreciation, perhaps a need, for utilizing both the Julian and Gregorian liturgical calendars. I find it an
opportunity to further explore spirituality from what John Paul II described as
Christendom’s left and right lungs (the Roman and Orthodox Churches). It better oxygenates my soul. It gives me pause to think in different ways
about Christ’s two greatest commandments – to love God with heart and soul and
to love one another as Jesus unconditionally loves us.

Timothy Larson at Faith and Leadership- The present is a very
thin place. This moment in history is the best in which to live -- I believe
this with all my mind and heart. But it is the best time in which to live
precisely because we have the riches of the past to hand: the thoughts, works
of art, discoveries and accomplishments of previous generations are ours to
enjoy. And their mistakes, blind spots and sinful patterns are there for us to
learn from. To reject those riches is to turn the present into an impoverished
place.

Carol Trueman at First Things - The problem with much Christian worship in the contemporary world,
Catholic and Protestant alike, is not that it is too entertaining but that it
is not entertaining enough. Worship characterized by upbeat rock music,
stand-up comedy, beautiful people taking center stage, and a certain amount of
Hallmark Channel sentimentality neglects one classic form of entertainment, the
one that tells us, to quote the Book of Common Prayer, that “in the midst of life we are in death.”

Episcopal Café – Hymnals are more like telephones than
automobile tires. Tires wear out visibly and require replacing. Telephones, on
the other hand, seldom wear out, yet still get replaced when updated models
offer new features attractive enough to warrant the change.

Danielle Shroyer at The Hardest Question- Pentecost is a radically important day.
It’s the rightful conclusion to the story of resurrection. The dismantling that
begins in Holy Week isn’t completed until Pentecost.

Paul Jesep at Faith with Widom - Death comes with much ritual, ceremony, and a huge industry embalming
bodies, cremating remains, and burying the departed in crypts, tombs, and
sealed artificial boxes in the ground.
In many ways, the death industry does not make sense.

Archaeology and Arts - “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one”. This is how researchers Armin Lange and Esther Eshel interpret the inscription found on an amulet discovered in a third-century C.E. child’s grave near the Roman frontier city Carnuntum.”

Judith Weingarten- Zenobia: Empress of the EastIt was also relatively commonplace to leave your own mark on the walls -- even within a god's temple, or a synagogue, or in someone else's home that you happened to be visiting!

Larry Hurdato - It shows how we use history to define ourselves, and so we have to choose what history by
which to do so. It shows also how
historical things that once bore one meaning can acquire (or be given) a very
different meaning, when people need to do so.
In this case, it also shows a striking instance of how archaeology
played a role in profound political developments of the recent past.

-Gabriel Stone -

John Bryan at The
Biblical World - So, as usual, what we have here is not a bombshell archaeological discovery, but rather another piece of evidence that
helps us to better understand the world of the New Testament.

Chaplain Mike at the Internet Monk -“Ancient evangelism occurred in a setting hostile to the church and its values; it developed in the context of a clear self-understanding of the church
as the eschatological people who are under the reign of God, the people who
confess “Jesus is Lord.” It was evangelism with teeth, not an “easy believism”
or a “cheap grace”; and it was a spiritual journey of discipleship, spiritual
formation, and entrance into a new community.”

The Dish -It seems Islam is going through its Dark Ages, where lack of education and a confusion of
tradition with religion in Muslim countries is causing their people to be
manipulated by false sermons of violence against the West as some good deed
when it’s a sin and a sin alone.

Huffington Post - Muslim leaders from across the globe paid tribute to Holocaust victims this week during a visit to Auschwitz, the former Nazi
concentration camp, where they prayed at the Wall of Death for those who were
killed by genocide and suffered under violent anti-Semitism.

Atheist Muslims:

Ali A. Rizvi at the Huffington Post - Richard Dawkins has referred to himself as a
"cultural Christian", with an admitted fondness for
Christianity-inspired art, literature and Christmas carols… This is probably why
he hit the nail on the head when he described me as a "cultural Muslim
with no imaginary friend." He understood that this is precisely what I
meant when I called myself an "atheist Muslim."

“Regular” Atheists:

St. Eutychus - Dear sir, it has come
to my attention as a citizen of the internet, that your, until recently,
esteemed publication has named polemicist Richard Dawkins as number one on your
“world thinkers” list for this year.

If you should need medical assistance during your visit to the fair, please visit our first-aid tent. The nurse there will assist you.

Pastoral:

Micah at A Deeper Story – I raised my hand when the preacher asked, “Who will commit to pray for
an hour a day, every day for the rest of their life?” I raised my hand every
time a preacher asked us to make a commitment, really. If there was a way to be
a better Christian, I would do it. No matter the cost. I wanted so desperately to please God.

Fred Clark at The Slactivist - The whole point of that scene — and of Strickland’s existence as a
character in the movie — is that he’s wrong. He’s wrong about Marty, and he’s
wrong about young people in general. Strickland is a cruel clown whose words
are not intended to be taken at face value. This is made very clear in the
scene above, in which Strickland is angry with Marty for entering his band in
the school’s dance audition. “Why even bother, McFly?” Strickland says, “No McFly ever amounted to anything.”

Well that's it; the Carnival is over. We hope you've enjoyed your time here and that you'll return again even after the carnival has closed up and moved on. If you haven't had enough thrills and chills already, you can check out
Jim West’s separatist and heretical Avignon Carnival – I’m sure it will be much snarkier and more exclusively focused on academic articles.

And be sure to visit the Biblioblog Carnival again next month when it will be hosted by Andrew King at The Blog of the Twelve.